Kroll Ontrack Adds Overwrite Capabilities for VMware Environments

Kroll Ontrack, a provider of information management tools, has announced a software tool that enables overwrite erasure of data on hard drives within VMware environments to ensure security and that drives can be repurposed. Version 4.0 of Ontrack Eraser provides expanded drive wiping capacity, VMware eraser capabilities, and new reporting and security management functionality.

With the new VMware drive wiping capability, Ontrack Eraser targets a pain point in the virtualization market by enabling deletion of data from VMware machines, ensuring corporations are securely deleting data from their virtual environments and therefore addressing the complete scope of their IT environment. “The industry is struggling with being able to confirm that VMDKs (virtual machine disks) are wiped securely,” Abhik Mitra, data recovery product manager at Kroll Ontrack, tells 5 Minute Briefing. “It is a very manual, mundane process today. We have made it easier with a software product to help automate that process, as well as easier for customers to select specifically which virtual disks they want to wipe,” In addition, the software also helps customers understand how traces of other data that might remain on snapshots can be removed as well. “It is essentially a compete solution and complete instructions that we are providing with this specific release,” says Mitra.

In addition, because customers’ drives are growing exponentially, the ability to concurrently wipe a large number of drives at the same time has become very important, Mitra adds. With previous releases, customers could wipe 128 drives at a time, a capability that expands to 200 drives with Ontrack Eraser 4.0. “This is really targeting the enterprise as well as the recycling space because it becomes very important in an enterprise environment where you can be wiping hundreds and hundreds of drives a day. Being able to add this capability helps them save a lot of time. And it also helps them to be more efficient in being able to reuse and repurpose those drives in the short term.”

Additional new capabilities include reports that denote the hard drive make, serial number and model number, as well as the wipe algorithm applied to accomplish the job, providing corporations with the appropriate records for recycling centers and compliance requests, and supporting enhanced security, there is new system authentication functionality to validate the erasure is conducted in the correct manner and by the appropriate individual.

Data wiping is fundamental to complying with laws and regulations regarding data retention and privacy and reducing the risk of security breaches. The advanced capabilities of Ontrack Eraser 4.0 enable enterprises to build a fully automated, efficient and cost-effective wipe process for a large number of devices. In addition to the enterprise software, Kroll Ontrack also has a mobile erasure service to help corporations address their erasure needs and meet their compliance and security requirements.

Ontrack Eraser 4.0 is a major release for Kroll Ontrack, notes Mitra. “Being able to address VMware and some of the updates around system performance, as well as reporting and security make this a very big release for us.”